A control plane (CP) function for session management performs a procedure for establishing local traffic offloading for a user equipment (UE) in a mobile network having an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and Fifth Generation (5G) converged core that supports communications via a Long-Term Evolution (LTE) radio access network (RAN) and a Fifth Generation (5G) RAN. Initially, a connection is established for the UE via the LTE RAN that includes a first bearer between the LTE RAN and a central serving gateway-user plane (SGW-U) at a central location, and a second bearer between the central SGW-U and a central packet gateway-user plane (PGW-U) at the central location. The CP function inserts a local SGW-U at an edge location and subsequently inserts a local intermediate user plane function (I-UPF) with an uplink classifier (UL-CL) at the edge location for enabling edge offload of traffic from the LTE RAN.
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3. The method of claim 2, wherein communicating the message which indicates the request for bearer update causes a corresponding message which indicates the request for bearer update to be communicated to a mobility management entity, the corresponding message including an identifier associated with the first local user plane network function at the edge location.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the identifier associated with the first local user plane network function at the edge location comprises a tunnel endpoint identifier.
6. The method of claim 5, wherein the identifier associated with the second local user plane network function at the edge location comprises a tunnel endpoint identifier.
12. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the instructions are further executable for communicating the message which indicates the request for bearer update to cause a corresponding message which indicates the request for bearer update to be communicated to a mobility management entity, the corresponding message including a tunnel endpoint identifier associated with the first local user plane network function at the edge location.
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September 30, 2021
April 2, 2024
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